


Dead Friends

by Morpheus626



Category: Saints Row
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:00:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25042048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morpheus626/pseuds/Morpheus626
Summary: A fic about beginnings of sorts, specifically the beginning of the relationship between my newer male Boss Ellis, Johnny, and Aisha.
Relationships: Aisha (Saints Row)/Johnny Gat, Male Boss (Saints Row)/Aisha (Saints Row)/Johnny Gat, Male Boss (Saints Row)/Johnny Gat
Kudos: 12





	Dead Friends

**Author's Note:**

> A notation for timeline fuckery both because the Saint’s Row overall and official timeline is sometimes…off a bit. Saints Row Two came out in 2008, and I’m putting my Boss at 25 that year, which gives him a birth year of 1983. He is a trans man, and I’ve got him as started on T in 2005/formally out of the closet as well. I put this down partially just to give background, but also so I don’t lose track of my own timeline if I write more fic with this Boss lol.

“You’re a little dumb sometimes, you know that?” 

Johnny didn’t respond, his beer left untouched on the newly bought (wood, not glass this time,) coffee table. 

“You’re really just gonna sit there and sulk over this, rather than dealing with it?” Aisha joined him on the couch, folding her arms as she sat. 

“Deal with what?” 

Aisha sighed. “You know.” 

“I don’t, and I don’t know why you gotta keep bringin’ up this shit I don’t know about.” 

“If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then why does it bother you that I keep bringing it up?” 

It was almost a growl, the grumble that came from Johnny, and made her laugh. 

“Just admit it, and you’ll feel better.” 

“How do you know that?” 

“Because, before we started officially dating, you acted like this whenever I was around. And then, shockingly enough, we started dating, and suddenly you weren’t a grumpy asshole all the time!” 

“Aish,” Johnny mumbled. “Not tonight.” 

“Then what night? You could avoid this back when he didn’t talk at all, but you can’t now, can you? What are you waiting for?” It was infuriating to her, that he’d rather sit there and make himself miserable rather than admit what was in his head and his heart. “You know I’m okay with it. Hell, I like him myself. Not in that way, and I really wish y’all would stop bringing your gang shit home-” 

“I cleaned the floor! The blood came out, just like I said it would.” 

“It did, and I appreciate your doing that,” Aisha replied patiently. “Point is, I’m okay with this. With it being three of us, however you two would wanna work it out. You could split time here with me, and at his place-” 

“His place is a shit hole,” Johnny muttered. “Y’know he spends a bunch of our money on all these extra cribs for the gang, but doesn’t ever spend the night at ‘em? Always drives home to that piece of shit one room thing near the hideout instead, even when he’s exhausted, and he shouldn’t drive tired.” 

“He shouldn’t,” Aisha agreed. “You should tell him that. Let him know you care.” 

“He knows,” Johnny replied. 

“Does he? Is that why he spends his few free nights drinking at the gay bar until he can’t see straight, then sits outside alone until he’s sober enough to drive home, or waits for Shaundi or another Saint to come pick him up, but never calls you to get him? Because that doesn’t sound like something someone who feels cared about would do.” 

“How the hell do you know where he is?” 

“Shaundi does surveillance for me when I ask,” Aisha shrugged. “It’s necessary more often than you’d think.” 

“You have her checkin’ in on me too?” 

“…Johnny, a lot of the time all of y’all are together anyway, and Shaundi is the Boss’ ride home from the bar whenever she isn’t high or drunk herself. Not real difficult surveillance.” 

“Huh,” Johnny muttered. “Okay, yeah. So you’ve got eyes all over and can see the Boss likes a drink, so what?” 

“Likes too many drinks, and sobbing outside of the gay bar about being alone, and how ‘he’ll never know’?” Aisha asked. “Is that what you mean?” 

“What are you implying?” 

“Why won’t you just say it? I know you know, and I know you want to,” Aisha said with another deep sigh. “I already told you I’m okay with it, and I don’t believe you seriously don’t know…” 

“Know what?!” Johnny barked. 

“Hey!” 

He melted back against the couch, and they sat in silence for a moment. 

“He loves you.” 

“Stop.” 

“And you love him. Just like you love me, just as much as you love me, and that scares you.” 

Johnny scoffed. “Boss isn’t gay.” 

Aisha stared hard at him. “He drinks almost exclusively at the gay bar. He literally has an outfit he calls his ‘leather club’ outfit. He modeled his facial hair after Freddie Mercury, who he also carries a picture of in his wallet, along with a picture of you. He has told me he’s gay.” 

Johnny shrugged. “But-” 

“You literally knew he was gay and transgender when you met him; I know Julius mentioned it to you.” 

“Okay, so I know, and I have known, so what?” 

“Why are you making this so difficult for yourself?” Aisha let a hand rest on Johnny’s arm. 

“We almost lost him once already,” Johnny replied, so softly she almost couldn’t hear him. “I can’t do that again.” 

“I know,” and then his hand was over hers and the skin, rough from the constant handling of pistols and other weapons, could have made her weep. Her boys, with their walls and scar tissue built thick, too thick even to let each other in. “But you could lose me tomorrow. Or Shaundi, or Pierce, or any other Saint.” 

“That’s different. You and Boss are…different. Not that I wouldn’t be tore up if we lost any of the kids that have joined, but I’m not in love with any of the-” 

He interrupted himself, and his hand disappeared from hers to wrap around his beer as he chugged half of it in one go. 

“Well, you more or less said it there,” Aisha said. “That’s progress.” 

“I have to talk to him, don’t I?” 

Aisha nodded. “Yeah. You both need it. And you both can do it, even if you don’t believe that. And I’ll be here, waiting for you both when you’ve talked it out.” 

**

“You…aren’t Shaundi,” the Boss slurred. 

“Good eyes. Was it the lack of dreadlocks, tits, or the scent of weed that gave it away?” 

The Boss grumbled something Johnny couldn’t understand, and flopped back onto the sidewalk. “Just go home.” 

“Nope. Not unless I’m takin’ you with. That’s the whole reason I’m here.” 

“I called Shaundi!” 

“Who is high as shit right now, so she can’t come get you. You want me to call Pierce?” 

“No…he doesn’t like picking me up. He says I’m ‘fucking irritating as fuck’ when I’m drunk.” 

“…I’m gonna go ahead and just not comment on any of that,” Johnny said. “Personally, I’d say that’s a case of pot meet kettle, but whatever. Get your ass in the car.” 

“No!” 

“Are you fuckin’ kidding me right now? Get in!” 

“I don’t have to!” 

“Oh really? Your drunk ass just gonna sleep on the sidewalk here, outside of ¢ocks, until the cops come pick you up? And how is that gonna look, to anyone, if they snag an infamous gangleader, finally put you back in prison, and it’s all because your dumb, stubborn ass won’t get in my car?” 

Boss was silent, and sat back up slowly. “Hard to stand up right now. Give a bitch a break.” 

It tugged at his heart strings, and he hated that, but it broke him. Boss looked so damn sad, sitting on the cold sidewalk, still wet from the rain earlier, drunk as a fucking skunk. 

“Don’t throw up on me,” he instructed as he got out of the car, and carefully as he could, manhandled the Boss into the passenger seat. 

There were no words, and even with the Boss still in his mirrored aviators, he could feel those eyes on him as he drove. 

“Just like old times. Me drivin’, you not sayin’ a damn word.” 

“Did you like it then, when I used to not talk?” 

Not at all what he had meant to start as a topic, but too late now. The Boss’ drunk logic had them there, and there was no going back. 

From any of this. 

“I wouldn’t say liked. I didn’t have an opinion back then, since I didn’t know what the fuck you sounded like or would say to anyone for the longest time.” 

“Pierce says it must have been nice. He says I talk too goddamn much.” 

“Pierce says a lot of shit,” Johnny replied, making a mental note to talk to Pierce about how he spoke to the Boss. Sure, they could all be assholes, but this was their asshole in charge. That had to be respected. “Ignore him. I like hearing you talk.” 

“Really?” 

He resisted the urge to turn on the radio, to distract the Boss and shut it all down. That wasn’t what this was about, if he could do it at all. If he should, since the Boss was fucking plastered and might not even remember anything in the morning. 

“Yeah. Shit, think I talk to you and Aish more than anyone else, unless you count barking at the new kids not to fuck shit up. And I don’t. That’s just orders, that’s not really talking. I mean it’s vocalizing, obviously, but like-” he cut himself off with a sigh as he pulled into the side driveway by the Boss’ studio apartment. “You get what I mean, right?” 

The Boss just nodded, and he desperately wished he would say something. 

But he was silent as Johnny helped him out and down the stairs to the basement unit, not a word until Johnny tossed him gently onto the bed. 

“Are you gonna leave?” 

“Uh. Figured you’d want me to.” 

The Boss shrugged. “If you got somewhere to be, I don’t wanna keep you.” 

“Does Shaundi usually stay?” 

The Boss nodded. “For a little bit. Says she wants to make sure I don’t fall asleep, puke, and then choke on it and die.” 

“If anyone would know about shit like that, it would be Shaundi.” 

“Right? We’re lucky to have her. She’s so sweet.” 

Johnny sat on the bed next to him, and watched as the Boss flopped back onto the bed, utterly boneless. “She is. Specially if she’s doin’ this every weekend.” 

“Hey! I have it down to every other weekend, THANK YOU, very much,” the Boss’ cadence faltered and flung itself at Johnny, and the stumbling left him laughing. 

“My apologies. Every other weekend then. You drink a lot with the rest of us though, might wanna give your liver a break now and again.” 

“It’s fine.” 

“Is it? Lotta drinking for somebody who’s ‘fine,’” Johnny replied, and realized too late he had probably crossed a line that maybe, just maybe shouldn’t have been crossed until the Boss was sober again. 

But the Boss just sat up, and sighed. “I ever tell you my name?” 

“Nope. In between all that talkin’ you’ve been doing, you’ve never told me that.” 

“Ellis,” he said, and while it took a moment, just a glimmer of a second to adjust to, in that minute it switched in Johnny’s head. “Like it? I picked it out myself.” 

“No shit,” Johnny smiled. “I figured. It suits you.” 

“Thank you,” Ellis replied, and slipped his sunglasses off and onto the ledge near the bed. “Think everyone else would respect me if I told them?” 

“Why not?” 

“’Cause I’m meant to be this fuckin’…mythological figure of a leader. The Boss, the crazy fucker who made it out of a coma and then out of prison and now out of every other goddamn weird ass situation you could think of, and…” 

Ellis paused, and Johnny watched him rifle briefly under the bed before pulling out a forty. 

“You…you have a fridge,” Johnny couldn’t help but say, and pointed to it. Hell, he’d helped Pierce haul it in after Ellis had bought it and needed help getting it installed. 

“This is faster,” Ellis shrugged. “Food in the fridge, booze under the bed.” 

“…anyway. You were saying?” 

“I mean. I’m just a person, you know? The Boss is this great, grandiose title or whatever but…end of the day, I’m me. I’m Ellis. And I don’t come home to this place and think ‘ooh look at how fuckin’ important and fancy I am’ or whatever. I come home and I’m stressed and worried about everybody, about losin’ people. Losing you.” 

The last bit was so quiet Johnny could barely hear it, but he caught it and his breath in his throat. 

“You should fuckin’ talk. You better not be in another fuckin’ coma this time next year.” 

“Or what?” 

The challenge laid out there was more than just regarding injury and death, he’d have to be an idiot not to catch that. And he was finally, nervously, ready to meet it. 

It was a little rougher than kissing Aisha, but he knew that was from Ellis’ constant anxious picking at his lips (after the first few months of Ellis’ becoming a Saint, it had become a giveaway that whatever was going on was likely to go South, and it was almost never wrong.) He didn’t mind it, in any case, just like he didn’t mind the hands that pulled him over and onto Ellis, that plucked at his shirt buttons, that-

“I’m sorry,” Ellis was breathless, his eyes shut. “If you want to say this is a mistake, you can. No harm, no foul. I won’t breathe a word to Aisha, or anyone, I promise, you have my wo-” 

“You’re a little bit dumb sometimes, you know that?” 

Ellis’ eyes flew open. 

“Who the fuck do you think told me to volunteer to come get you the next time you went out? Who told me to stay and talk to you? Who told me my own fuckin’ feelings when I-” Johnny took a deep breath. “When I was too scared to admit them to myself. Aisha knows, hell, she’s back at home writing out a schedule so you two can have equal time with me.” 

“She’s the brains then,” Ellis said. “In this, I mean. Our little…whatever we want to call this.” 

“Yup.” 

“Is she really sure about not joining the Saints? I know she can’t leave the house, but with advancing technology she could easy work from home and-” 

He interrupted Ellis with another kiss. “She loves us, but not all this ‘gang shit.’ Tells me all the time it’s just a faster way to find a grave.” 

“Is she wrong?” 

“I don’t think we wanna find that out,” Johnny replied. And he didn’t. Not if it involved any of them, or any of the Saints. Besides, he already knew she was right. He saw proof of that in every rival gangster they gunned down. They’d just been lucky so far, if you could call imprisonment and comas and various other wounds ‘lucky.’ They weren’t dead, at least.

**

Ellis was also surprisingly not dead-acting the next morning, though everything to Johnny seemed to signal he should have been, from the massive amounts of alcohol to the mattress that seemed designed to give someone back problems. 

“Good morning; coffee’s on, it’s bad but that’s because I’m terrible at making coffee. It’s warm, at least.” 

Johnny took the mug, but didn’t drink. “…this is why you wanted baristas in the other cribs?” 

“Pretty sure if I was making the coffee all the time, all of our members would defect based purely upon that. And I can’t say I’d blame them,” Ellis replied as he took a sip from his own mug and cringed.

“Aish makes good coffee.” 

“Is a critique or an invitation?” 

Johnny shook his head. “Second one. Grab clean clothes and whatever shit you need for today. We can eat breakfast with her, then hit the hideout, see what everyone else is doing today.” 

There wasn’t much in the apartment for Ellis to grab; despite a busy post-prison life and decent cash flow, he still hadn’t bought much for himself aside from a few new clothes and weapons, and at least half the weapons had been taken from other gangsters they’d killed. 

“You know, we have money now. We could take you sho-” 

The feeling of Ellis’ hand slipping into his stopped him, but only for a moment as he gripped it back, tight. “Shopping. We need to take you out for new shit. I don’t mean that offensively, but I mean…you own what, like three shirts max?” 

“Counting the T-shirt from prison, four,” Ellis corrected. 

“That one absolutely does not count,” Johnny said as they made it to the car, a short distance, and one that left him missing the feeling of Ellis’ hand as soon as it was gone. 

Better still was Ellis’ head on his shoulder they drove, though he was half-shocked to believe this clingy creature had been hiding for so long, purely so as not to upset or offend him. 

He really _was_ dumb sometimes. 

But not this time, and hopefully less so in the future. He had a lot to live for now.


End file.
